La Guajira is a complex region where it’s hard to find authentic experiences to approach indigenous Wayuu culture. Virtually all local agencies offer the same desert tours, with little or no cultural interaction, and many practice less-than-responsible tourism.
Today, we’re delighted to be able to share with you a new experience proposed by our friend Jeanne (a Frenchwoman living in Riohacha) with the Wayuu weavers with whom she has forged a privileged relationship in the course of her work.
It’s a real encounter with a Wayuu family, far from folklore, as close as possible to the life and traditions of a rancheria in the Guajira desert.
Disclaimer: we apologize in advance for any grammatical or syntactic errors, as our native language is not English (we're a Colombian-French couple), so we hope you'll forgive us and still enjoy the information we share with you! Please note that all the information on our blog is based on our own experience, and is checked and updated regularly.
Contents
Related posts
Exclusive 5% Off Discount For you
Best Travel insurance for Colombia
Our partner offers the best rates and a 5% discount for our blog readers! (regardless of travel dates)
In contact with a Wayuu family
Cultural experience around Riohacha
We set off from Riohacha in the direction of the desert, towards the rancheria (Wayuu farm) that will host us for the night. We turn off the road, take a sandy track between cactus and balding shrubs, and finally arrive at Glenis, the weaver with whom Jeanne works all year round. Glenis is the queen of Chinchorros (Wayuu hammocks).
The welcome is triumphant! It’s the weekend and all the children in the family are here. Most of the children live in the city, in Uribia, where they go to school, but they absolutely wanted to come and meet us.
We have questions, but they also have a lot of questions for us. And that’s what’s going to make this experience unique. This sharing, as simple as it is profound, will be at the heart of the 24 hours we spend there.
Beyond discovering life in a rancheria, learning about traditions, weaving techniques, etc., it’s all about sharing, strolling and conversing, talking over a cup of coffee, chatting while weaving a mochila, chatting while peeling vegetables, talking around the fire, confiding in each other, pouring out our hearts, expressing ourselves, explaining ourselves…
After a welcome coffee, Glenis shows us her weaving loom where she makes the chinchorros. It’s all done by hand, and it’s impressive to see why it takes months of work to produce these authentic works of art.
The chinchorro is a comfortable XXL-sized hammock traditionally used by the Wayuus for sleeping. Basically, it’s their bed. And it’s also in a chinchorro that we’ll be sleeping tonight.
After admiring Glenis’s dexterity in weaving her chinchorros, we set off for a walk around the rancheria. The walk calls for exchanges, and the exchanges invite confidences, and we enjoy a privileged moment in an unspeakable landscape.
The desert landscapes are magnificent, the daylight is gradually fading, the children are twirling between games and questions, the sisters are smiling, the atmosphere is joyful. As night falls, we head home to prepare dinner.
Tonight, we’ll have the honor of eating “friche”, a traditional dish made from “chivo” (goat), which the Wayuu traditionally raise. In Wayuu culture, “chivos” are synonymous with wealth and power. Selling them is their main source of income, but they can also be used as compensation to settle disputes, and as dowries at weddings. Here, the family owns several hundred.
In the kitchen, the meal is prepared over a wood fire: wood, fire, a large pan on top and that’s it.
We’ve brought vegetables and fruit, and the children are discovering the taste of an avocado for the first time. It’s an opportunity to understand that, between the difficulty of accessing national products and the poverty that makes it difficult to buy products considered expensive, many Colombian foods never make it onto the plates here.
Outside, the fire is also burning, as it is every evening. This is where we gather to share our meal. The full moon (Kashi in Wayuunaiki) is here, and we all take it in turns to look at it through the binoculars we’ve brought along.
As the evening progresses, with the tasting of “friche”, silences, laughter and discussions, the night grows darker, the children fall asleep on the chairs, words become whispers… It’s time to go to sleep in our chinchorros to the sounds of the desert (and the neighbors’ music in the distance!).
The life of a Wayuu rancheria
Cultural experience in Guajira
The next morning we wake up at dawn. Here there’s no electricity, no running water, no toilets. We wash with buckets, relieve ourselves behind a tree, cook with a fire… but beware, everyone has a cell phone and everyone has a network!
We’re off to feed the baby goats. Baby goats that have lost their mothers are bottle-fed. The luckiest ones scurry under their mother’s teats. A female goat on the ground waits to give birth to her baby. We’re told she’s exhausted, she can’t make it, she’ll probably die here. But that’s life. That’s just the way it is.
We then go to the well to fetch water. The family here is fortunate to have received help from a kind soul to build this water well, which provides them with the water they need on a daily basis.
Before the water well was built, as in the case of many Wayuu families, the only source of water was the “Jagüey”, a sort of huge basin dug into the ground to collect rainwater during the rainy season in October, where families come to do their laundry, take water for drinking, washing, cooking, feeding the livestock, etc., and so on.
For breakfast, we get to work making the arepas that Glenis will cook over the wood fire. These succulent arepas will be accompanied by a coffee prepared by us. We’ve brought some coffee beans with us to share our love of this beverage, emblematic of Colombia. Once again, curiosity is the order of the day.
Although coffee is a daily part of Wayuu life, drunk throughout the day and into the evening, no one here had ever seen a real coffee bean. We take the opportunity to show them pictures of the plant, the flower, the fruit, we grind the coffee all together, filter it and taste it, “a different flavor from the usual”.
After yesterday’s chinchorro weaving initiation, we sit down with the Glenis sisters for a mochila weaving workshop. This colorful bag is the main handicraft made by Wayuu women and sold all over the country. But the Mochila is also a central cultural object, linked to the myths of the creation of the world and the rites of passage to adulthood.
It’s a serious business that requires a lot of patience. After a few tries, you realize just how difficult it is, and how dexterous these women are in creating these beautiful mochilas. This activity is also one of the main sources of income for many Wayuu families.
If one day you witness this work, we hope you will value this craft, avoid haggling and prefer to pay a decent price to the craftswomen.
Later in the morning, we’ll take a stroll to the famous Jagüey, now used mainly for washing clothes and watering animals.
The heat is intense, we try to avoid getting a cactus thorn in our foot, we teach each other some Wayuunaiki and english words, we observe the birds present in this dry desert forest…
Finally, we return to the rancheria. Time to prepare for our departure.
Glenis and her sisters each show us their house: a simple empty room, surprisingly cool thanks to its earthen construction, where the few pieces of furniture and personal belongings are distributed against the walls, and where every evening they come to hang the chinchorros to sleep as a family.
It’s time for souvenir photos and farewells, which we hope are just goodbyes.
Thank you Glennis, thank you kids, thank you to the whole family and thank you Jeanne for making this unique experience possible, one that will remain forever engraved in our memories and in our hearts!
How the experience unfolds
Discover the indigenous Wayuu culture in Guajira
It’s been said over and over again, but Jeanne’s experience is a real encounter with a Wayuu family.
Of course time is limited, of course it’s an organized activity with a planned “program”, of course the family receives a benefit from your visit. But it’s an experience that offers a real connection with Wayuu culture, the likes of which you don’t find on conventional tours of the Alta Guajira desert.
To get to the heart of the matter, there are two possible options (we chose the 2nd one):
Important
Jeanne works with different Wayuu families, in different rancherias, depending on their availability. But you can be sure that whether you go at Glenis’s place or with other families, the richness of the experience remains the same!
Morning in a rancheria
- Departure from Riohacha around 7:00 am in the direction of Manaure
- Meeting with the Wayuu women’s community
- Wayuu weaving workshop
- Discover life in a Rancheria
- Return to Riohacha aroung 12:00 pm
Good to know
This experience can be included in a classic tour to Cabo de la vela – Punta Gallinas.
Night in a rancheria
- Departure from Riohacha around 1:30 pm in the direction of Manaure
- Meeting with the Wayuu community
- Wayuu weaving workshop
- Discover life in a Rancheria
- Share in the preparation of a traditional wood-fired meal
- A moment of exchange around the sacred fire
- Overnight in a traditional hammock
- Wake up to the Rancheria’s morning activities
- “Arepas” workshop
- Return to Riohacha around 11:00 am
Good to know
This experience can be included in a classic tour to Cabo de la vela – Punta Gallinas.
Get in touch
Wayuu Cultural Experience
Responsible tourism
This experience offers a different way to explore tourism in the Guajira desert—a cultural alternative to classic tours. Our partner is committed to paying fair prices to the Wayuu families they work with.
Where to stay in Riohacha
Riohacha
Appartement
Casa Origen
This is where we stayed during our 10 days in Riohacha. This perfectly located house, two blocks from the beach, offers several beautifully decorated rooms for rent with air conditioning. Tthe hosts, Jeanne and Julian, offer superb local experiences.
Riohacha
Hostal
Bona Vida
A Riohacha success story, Bona Vida now has 4 or 5 (we don’t know) different locations in the city. Always in a colorful atmosphere and with the famous “pancake” breakfast for which it is famous.
How to get to XXX
Getting to Riohacha by bus
Riohacha bus terminal
- Address: Calle 16a #11-2 a 11-154
- Phone: +57 (5) 727 2739
To/From the Bus Terminal
The Bus Terminal is about 10 minutes by cab and 20 minutes on foot from downtown Riohacha.
Bus from Santa Marta to Riohacha (2h30)
From the Bus Terminal or Mercado Publico, head for Riohacha.
- Price: approx. $20.000 COP
- Companies: Copetran and many other small companies from the Mercado Publico
Bus from Cartagena to Riohacha (7h)
- Price: approx. $40.000 COP
- Companies: Copetran, Unitransco, Expreso Brasilia
Getting to Riohacha by plane
To/From the airport
The airport is about 15 minutes by cab or 20 minutes by bus from downtown Riohacha
Flight from Bogota to Riohacha (1h40)
- Price: approx. $250.000 COP
- Airlines : Avianca
Flight from Medellín to Santa Marta (1h15)
There are no direct flights from Medellín to Riohacha.
- Airlines : Avianca
- Price: approx. $150.000 COP
